It's also not just how the academy operates, it's how the club as a whole operates.

It's why I'm very much against a binning of the salary cap because I think, unless clubs drastically increase their income then less needs spending on players wages and more on club infrastructure.

Sort the clubs out off the pitch and they'll succeed on it.

More chance of good british rl players going to the nrl then union as our players dont seem to popular with unions "old boys". The salary cap will only work if all teams can spend to full cap and if the less successful clubs can keep hold of their better players to build a squad capable of challenging the top 4, rather then lose their better players to top 4 sides. Maybe the rl could sponsor the clubs who are struggling or offer incentives for good young players to stay at the said clubs and give them a chance to build a team capable of challenging for honours. Tbh i dont think the top clubs would agree with lower rated clubs getting much help as it could help stop them monopolising the honours each season. Werent Storm given a lot of help in their infancy to ensure their team was capable of challenging and make them an attractive team to encourage people from an aussie rules stronghold to support.
The salary cap does need increasing but so does the money coming in to rl. The marketing in rl is pants and has been for years. We like to call it the greatest game amongst ourselves but it needs shouting out in areas that arent rl strongholds with a truly competative league to prove it.

My belief is that the salary cap is working. The lack of competition for silverware reflects the small number of clubs with sufficient resource to compete at the top end of SL. Why does it work better in Australia? Well, they had mergers. We resisted them - no Humberside, Calder or Cheshire. Choosing tradition is entirely legitimate, but wanting competitive balance as well is probably a bit 'cake and eat it'.
There are all sorts of loopholes in the cap, so I expect that wage bills vary significantly, even between teams notionally spending up to the limit. The higher rate of tax means that an extra £10k spent is only about an extra £6k received. Plus you're going to get more job satisfaction playing for the perennial winners. When you look at things in the round I don't think any of it is very surprising.
at least supporters of 'opponent' teams can expect to beat the wealthier clubs every now and then. We all know how the season will end, but at least the results of individual games remain somewhat uncertain, and for that I'm grateful to the cap. If they happened to agree with this analysis, then fans of Leeds/Wigan/Saints might say 'well just merge then', but they have the consolation of supporting teams who win stuff, so surely can't complain too much. Success fatigue will elicit limited sympathy I'm afraid!
The youth development thing is a factor, but only one of several. By itself it wouldn't make all that much difference, to clubs 7-12. No more than putting formula 1 tyres on my Ford Fiesta would allow it to do 180 mph.

Mergers has nothing to do with the competitiveness of the comp. in nrl, clubs being legit in spending the cap and players moving clubs to earn a bit more are. You often see a player break through, get some rep honours and be able to command a top tier salary that the current club can't match. If there are 4-5 players per club who can command top tier salary then the next tier down are the ones targeting by the struggling clubs. Still can't figure out why this isn't happening in SL IF all clubs are paying same salary cap. I don't buy the staying at a successful club, it's a short career and if a player can earn 50k more somewhere else then I doubt he'd not be tempted.
Next season we'll have a struggling warriors strengrpthend by RTS and Luke moving from gf winning clubs and Foran moving from a successful manly club to a wooden spoon eels.

because players can't earn 50k more.

a 1.8m cap is 72k a player for a 25man squad. Even a wage of 150-200k has a huge effect on that.

The big clubs all have the same exemptions and discounts, there wont be a significant difference between the 4-5 stars at each club, there wont be a significant difference between the 10 first teamers, there wont be a significant difference between the 10-15 fringe players and prospects. Wigan can't afford to offer 50k more than Leeds or Saints or Wire because the cap makes the opportunity cost of doing so too high. Spending an extra 50k on a star player for them means losing a first teamer and replace them with a fringe player.

For the lesser clubs they perhaps can afford to offer an extra 50k for a star player, but they can't offer the opportunity for prize money, trophies, have the barrier of inertia, can't offer the security of a big side, the off-field and sports science stuff and still need to deal with the fact they have spent 50k more and need to build a squad.


The very best players in SL are on 150-200k, a 50k difference in salary is a huge jump. Its a decent player. We just arent going to see 1 team offer 50k more than the rest in a league where the average salary equals 72k. The NRL salary cap is much higher, the effective spend is about £3.5m with a hell of a lot more 'marginal talent'. So for the same percentage the NRL can offer a 100k increase as an SL club offering 50k. Added to the increased marginal talent the NZW can offer TVS a big increase without it costing so much of the cap, and 'make up' that increased spend with a bigger, better selection of cheaper players stepping up.

The cap is full of holes, so I very much doubt we (Hull KR) spend what Leeds or Wigan do on player wages.

Plus they have the option of paying fees, instead of competing for ooc players in an open market. And then bigger support staffs and so on.

Basically there are enough big clubs in Australia to support a highly competitive league of a sensible size. In the UK there aren't. The cap means that when Rovers or Widnes play Wigan or Leeds, the outcome usually ranges from narrow victory to heavy defeat for the underdog. Without the cap that'd probably be defeat to very heavy defeat. The cap levels things a bit, expecting to level things much more is not realistic IMO.